


Mourning

by orphan_account



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cunnilingus, Depression, F/M, M/M, Mid-Canon, Miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-22
Updated: 2013-04-22
Packaged: 2017-12-09 04:27:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/769975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set post-1.07, pre-1.08. Athelstan and Ragnar try to lend comfort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mourning

Athelstan had bruises on his legs, on his knees, big black butterflies from where he knelt to pray. He prayed less often now, or at least didn’t put his hands together to do it. He still knelt with his hands on his thighs and looked at the ground and whispered to himself. The little cross necklace he wore seemed to be in his hands more often than around his neck; he toyed with the cord, slipped the cross itself between his lips, spat it out and looked at his hands pushed against his legs and sighed great sighs.

Ragnar watched him from around the corner. 

Athelstan was not a small broken thing anymore. He was not a _slave_ anymore, at least not in Ragnar’s mind. He joked with the children, looked Lagertha in the eye, did not shy away from Ragnar’s arm around his shoulder, but then he knelt to pray or – to – talk to himself, whatever he was doing, and he _shrank_ like he had been doused in cold water. Ragnar stuck his tongue into the side of his mouth and watched him sway like a leaf in the wind.

Athelstan jolted when Ragnar put his hand on his shoulder. He shrugged off Ragnar’s arm and stood, hastily pulling down his trouserlegs so they covered the bruises. 

“Excuse me,” he said, not looking in Ragnar’s eyes, and darted off around the corner. 

Ragnar did not follow. He raided instead.

* * *

He came back and got into bed. Lagertha’s empty belly drove knives into his heart. Drove knives into hers. She did not want to be touched so he lay with his mouth on the back of her neck, his arms wrapped around her bosom. When he felt tears dripping onto his hand he kissed her neck and hummed in her ear. Lagertha did not get out of bed when he did and so he could not get out of bed. He sang to her in the deep night, when she was half asleep and her tears were drying stiff on her cheeks. War songs, fight songs, the only songs he knew. Whispered and broken up with humming, they sounded almost sweet.

In the morning Athelstan came in with bowls of sweets and knelt by her side of the bed. He coaxed her to sit up, to part her lips. Ragnar watched the priest feed his wife like a bird would its chick and he had a sudden desire to smash him to the ground. Lagertha fell asleep again and he climbed out of bed and stalked through the halls and pushed the priest against the wall of the pigsty. “What spell did you put on her?”

Athelstan choked; he had Ragnar’s hand around his neck. “Spell?" 

“You don’t pray anymore.” Ragnar wanted to throttle him, to kick his stiff body down the banks into the rime-cold sea. “I know you don’t. And yet you _whisper._ What _spell,_ priest? Undo it.”

“I don’t pray anymore because I can’t believe in God,” Athelstan rasped. He curled his hands around Ragnar’s wrist and forced his hand back an inch, just enough so he could breathe. “I tried so hard to pray for Lady Lagertha but nothing came. I couldn’t feel _anything._ ” He was weeping and his tears mixed with Lagertha’s on Ragnar’s hand. “This is my fault. If I had – tried – harder – ”

He sobbed and Ragnar let him fall on his knees. He sobbed and Ragnar collapsed next to him. The pigs nosed around them, curious and irritating. Ragnar pushed the heels of his hands against his eyes and tried to will the babe back in Lagertha’s belly. Nothing happened. Nothing would happen.

If Athelstan was a witch Ragnar could have killed him and at least been revenged. Athelstan had tried to help. Tried to pray. Came with sweets to put between Lagertha’s lips. Was there to hold her the minute it happened. Ragnar’s hands were wet and he took in painful breaths. 

The weight of Athelstan’s arm around him made him want to kick but he stayed sat on the ground with his eyes closed. Athelstan took harsh breaths still but in between his tears he was singing quietly in English. A baby’s song, it sounded like, a loving song. Athelstan held him like he would hold Lagertha and crooned in his ear. All Ragnar’s bones went out of him and he lay in Athelstan’s arms. It was all right. It would never be all right. 

After a bit he struggled to his feet and picked up Athelstan by the collar. They stumbled together back to the bedroom, where Lagertha lay with her eyes half-open. Ragnar fitted himself on Lagertha’s frontside and let Athelstan arrange himself against her back. Athelstan began to sing again, almost whispered, muffled against Lagertha’s gown.

He sounded prettier than Ragnar’s war songs.

* * *

 Lagertha could get out of bed. She could walk. Sometimes she could bring herself to smile. Athelstan slipped in their bed every night. Sometimes he sang. Sometimes he was quiet. Most of the time he kneaded Lagertha’s back, took her hand when she stood up, knelt by her bedside. Do you need anything, my lady. Can I bring you anything, my lady.

Ragnar rolled over on his belly with his chin in his hands and watched Lagertha kiss him. 

“Priest,” she said, when he tried to shy away. “Stay.”

"My lady, I – “

“Priest,” Ragnar said, “she told you to stay.”

Athelstan blushed like a bride. Athelstan let Lagertha run her hands over his face, his back. He shuddered when Lagertha kissed him again but he kissed back and Lagertha smiled. She stroked his jaw.

“Sweet priest,” she said.

She didn’t do anything more with him. Let him slip off the bed and trundle down the hall. Ragnar put his head on her belly and she mussed his hair. “He’s praying for me.”

“He doesn’t pray anymore.” Ragnar was unaccountably jealous. He buried his head in her bosoms and kissed her there.

“Doesn’t he?” She hummed the tune that Athelstan would sing to her. “Go find him.” 

Athelstan was in the pigsty, bright red and kneeling, hands folded over his lap, cross sticking out the side of his mouth. He muttered like the wind in the trees and he was small and shrunken and delectable. Ragnar sat down beside him and slung an arm over his shoulder. “Come comfort my wife.” 

“I cannot.”

“You’re not even praying,” Ragnar said, exasperated. “You don’t talk to your god anymore. Comfort her.”

“‘He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh and have them in derision.'” Athelstan spoke into his hands. “;Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in sore displeasure.’”

“What?”

“I think my god killed her babe,” Athelstan said. He closed his eyes. “I lied. I do pray. I pray for you and Lagertha. I prayed you be happy and healthy and I think he was mad at that.”

“Why?”

“You’re heathens.”

“And you’re a heathen in this land. Your god has no power here. The Norns are cruel sometimes. Come back to bed.” 

Athelstan didn’t move until Ragnar dragged him to his feet and they walked bowlegged back to the room. Lagertha sat up with her gown pulled off her shoulders and her legs spread. Athelstan held her shoulders and sang to her in his soft voice while Ragnar kissed down her stretched belly and licked at her sex. She pushed his head against her and when she cried out she cried, tears slipping down her cheeks, and Athelstan pushed his lips into her shoulder. The night was long and Athelstan pliable. He was coaxed, eventually, to kiss Lagertha’s breasts, to splay his fingers across her collarbone while Ragnar made her come again and again with his fingers, with his lips.

Eventually she pushed him away, sated and warm, and wrapped herself back up in her gown. She undid Athelstan’s arms from her shoulders, pulled the furs over her head, and Ragnar took Athelstan back to the sty and shoved him against the wall. Athelstan shrank under his kiss. Athelstan knelt without prompting and clawed at Ragnar’s trouser laces and Ragnar held the back of his head as he sucked. 

He tilted Athelstan’s head up so the come would not drip from his mouth. Closed his hands over Athelstan’s lips and made him swallow. Athelstan panted like a dog. He was shaking. He was laughing. He put his forehead against Ragnar’s thigh.

“Fuck my god,” he said.

Ragnar pushed him back on his knees and left him there.

* * *

Later, later in the night, nights later. Athelstan curled like a maggot pushing against Ragnar’s back. Athelstan asleep. Ragnar bright-eyed and watchful. Lagertha’s eyes slit open like cat eyes. She traced Ragnar’s breath with her fingers.

Quietly: “His god killed our son.”

“I thought so,” she said. “I thought so. Are we going to Uppsala this year?”


End file.
